Grim Saturday for Hemel cricket sides

Hemel’s batting crumbled as the side headed to Saracens Herts League Championship defeat on Saturday.

Put in to bat by Reed I, Hemel I had reached 59 for the first wicket in 15 overs before the game fell apart for them.

Tom Elborn (35) was the first to go, three wickets later Hem Ilangaratne (36) departed at 90-4 and then the innings disintegrated. Only a 25 run last wicket partnership between Charlie Hoskins (16) and Guy Scott-Morriss (6*), on his 1st XI debut, got the score up tp 136 and used up seven extra overs.

Hemel’s bowlers roared back and after four overs they had Reed at 6-3 as Brett Penny (2-39) and Lewis Hodgins (2-63) did the initial business. But Chris Jackson (62*) and Alex Mutucumarana (30) dug in and put on 48 for Reed to get them on their way.

Ed Garrott (27) kept it going and Hemel were done for as Reed made 137-5 to win by 5pm.

Due to a ‘club’ wedding most of Hemel II’s regular players were missing for the trip to Cockfosters and the side was made up of either third XI players or ‘ex’ players drafted in at short notice.

Skipper for the day Anjam Khan took the move up from skippering the thirds to open and make 14. Rahul Wickramsinghe opened with him and scored 15. There was nothing else of note until one of the ‘ex’ players in the form of Rhys Fowler came in at number 8 and blasted a quick 47 with 5 fours and 4 sixes.

However a total of 117 in 35 overs was never really going to be enough, as it proved as Chris Stead (50*) and Dan Becker 46*) saw off the runs in 16 overs for the loss of just one wicket. Hemel II maintain their long standing place at the foot of Div 2B.

It wasn’t the time for Hemel IIIs to be short of players – playing Dunstable II who are currently second in the division and chasing promotion from Div 4B.

Put in by Dunstable, Hemel crept to 86 all out mainly thanks to newcomer Ranganayi Nasho who made nearly half of the runs with 37 on his debut for the club on Saturday league games. The only other double figure batting scores were 10s from Scott Radcliffe and Balinder Walia.

It took Andy Boocock (48*) and Ned Whitney (39*) just 13 overs to tap off the runs.

Hemel IV followed the rest of the Hemel sides on this Saturday by subsiding to a major defeat.

Batting first, Mike Samuels (11) and Nick Benson (9) managed to see of the first 10 overs to get Hemel IV to 17 runs. They both fell in the next two overs and only Jamshed Akbar (20) was able to dig in at three as the next seven batsmen came and went with remarkable speed. Ten from Jamie Wheeler at the foot of the innings was the only other double figure score.

Twelve overs was all it took Nigel Pointing (41*) and Stuart Warrington (26*) to knock off the required runs.

On Sunday Hemel IIs felt the force of Chess Valley League newcomers Old Fullerians in their Division Six clash.

The visitors at the top of the division, having won all their played games, trounced a weakened Hemel side. Batting first all the OF batsmen established themselves for runs with only the leggies of Alfie Bordoley snapping up 2-63, James Stroebel taking 2-39 and Dawood Iqbal picking up a late wicket for 1-40.

Old Fullerians ended on an imposing 287-5 from their 45 overs.

Hemel lost wicketkeeper Phil Smith to the first ball of their reply and it didn’t really get better from there. Saleem Farooqi smashed 48 with 5 fours and 3 sixes, but 19 from Jack Boughton, 16 from skipper of the day Charlie Hoskins and 15 from Balinder Walia were the only double figure scores as Hemel II were 124 all out to lose by 163 runs.

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